jesus

[vtmarik]

You can't be sure that everything in the Bible is true.

Thats called faith. I have faith that it is. I believe it is.

Exactly. Doesn't necessarily make it true.

Well, yes it does. Truth is a personal opinion, and is the subject of theosophy and philosophy. There is a fundamental difference between things that are 'true' and things that are factual.

[Major Henderson]

Well if you think it's good, then IMO the atheists should gain their own area as well. But in all honesty, do you not like having these spirited debates?

Absolutely. Everybody (not just the Christians & Atheists) should get their own area. And yes...I do enjoy a debate here and there.

My main disappointment here is that so many just simply discount the Christian worldview out of hand that it's hard to have a decent debate. You can't really argue with someone who believes they are intellectually superior to you simply because of their position. I've sat through the public education drumbeat of "there is no God". I bought into that when I was younger, but not now.

Later, I endured the university lectures of professors who intentionally tried to mischaracterize and redefine Christianity as a religion bent on forced conversion. I kind of wrote it off as a bunch of bitter wackos who just had an axe to grind because of a bad religious experience. Now that I've read posts here I can see how dangerous their ranting has become. The constant repetition of anti-God rhetoric in the classroom is finally coming to fruition, and I see it here almost every day.

Go to the Flame Wars and read the Creationists thread. Some of the statements there are so outlandish I wonder if they were just said out of spite or jest. (Yes, I realize the Flame Wars has a different standard).

True Christianity is being able to care for those who are sick, hurting, or extremely poor in order to show the love of Christ. When I (or others) try to talk about such things here, it usually gets twisted around and another round of false accusations gets hurled. It really would be cool to just talk about ways to help other people in this world.

Amen to that Brotha!

[Major Henderson]

oooooooooook ur a just so jelous u dont have 1 to comite to

No, we just don't see the need to go to a church every sunday to pay money to people who abuse children for saying several verses that are in a book written two millenia ago by people we don't even know about claiming to spread the word of god even though they could well have been doing peyote at the time.

I know peyote didn't exist in the Mideast. Shut up.

What r u talking about????

[2dimes]

Just wondering if you could explain a bit.

I doubt I'm going to do this justice as I'm tired, but here goes: I was raised as a Christian. My dad was a hypocrital pastor. He slept with a lot of women and kicked the crap out of a lot of people. But he could quote the scriptures frontward and backwards. Eventually he divorced my mom and left us when we presented proof of his actions. I saw a lot of Christians behave like this besides him, it wasn't just his hypocrisy.

From that point, I saw Christians as a bunch of self-righteous twits. They told stories of judgement in order to scare people into giving $$ to church, which they just used to better themselves. Also, they made up the whole concept of hell to scare people/societies into obeying the "Church" so they could exert more power over people. And who were these people on TV saying "PRAISE THE LAWD"!! with bad haircuts and massive amounts of mascara?

I was 19, serving in the USMC in Okinawa, Japan. The sergeant who was inspecting my room noticed a Bible on my shelf. (The chaplain gives them to all servicemen). He asked me if I believed in the Bible and I told him to GFY! However, he didn't back down and issued a challenge to me...if the Bible is not true then it should be easy to discredit it. "OK, I'll bring you your proof you self-righteous SOB and you'll owe me a night out with the who*e of my choice" [I actually could have been brought up on charges for talking to him like that, but thank God he was cool].

I set out to discredit the Bible, God, Christianity. What I found over the course of researching was that it was actually less of a leap of faith to believe in God than natural selection/spontaneous generation/adaptation. The Bible had more credibility than many of the works of skeptics I had admired up to that point. I've posted many responses in other threads and you can read them for yourself. Like I said, I switched faiths. The transition was not easy. The more things I found that conflicted with my presupposition that the Bible was bogus...the more pissed off I would become. What ticked me off the most was the idea that I would be judged for what the Bible described as "sin" (acts which offended God).

Luke was the most influential book of the Bible for me, because it was written by a physician/historian, and not someone who just accepted things without investigation. Finally, I had to admit to myself that what was really making me angry is that I didn't want to believe that I would one day be accountable for my acts. It didn't matter that others were being hypocrites...I would be responsible to Jesus Christ for my actions, not someone else. I came to the realization that God did exist, I had done bad things, but that God provided a way out of that judgement through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on my behalf. I accepted that for myself personally through a prayer to Him one night at Camp Pendleton, California. (I had been transferred there by this time).

No heavenly trumpets or angelic voices, sorry! But since then I have found I have the capacity to care & help others. I never thought I had that inside me before. My old philosophy was "do unto others before they can do it to you", now it's been replaced with an attitude of service to others in order to show them how much God loves them as well.

I'll still do stupid hypocritical stuff. You'll probably witness it yourself on this site from time to time. But the difference now is that I'm not proud of it and repent (admit I'm wrong and try to change). Sorry this is so long, but thanks for taking the time to read it.

Good story, it probably doesn't do it justice. It was definately not too long.

[unriggable]

Just wondering if you could explain a bit.

I doubt I'm going to do this justice as I'm tired, but here goes: I was raised as a Christian. My dad was a hypocrital pastor. He slept with a lot of women and kicked the crap out of a lot of people. But he could quote the scriptures frontward and backwards. Eventually he divorced my mom and left us when we presented proof of his actions. I saw a lot of Christians behave like this besides him, it wasn't just his hypocrisy.

From that point, I saw Christians as a bunch of self-righteous twits. They told stories of judgement in order to scare people into giving $$ to church, which they just used to better themselves. Also, they made up the whole concept of hell to scare people/societies into obeying the "Church" so they could exert more power over people. And who were these people on TV saying "PRAISE THE LAWD"!! with bad haircuts and massive amounts of mascara?

I was 19, serving in the USMC in Okinawa, Japan. The sergeant who was inspecting my room noticed a Bible on my shelf. (The chaplain gives them to all servicemen). He asked me if I believed in the Bible and I told him to GFY! However, he didn't back down and issued a challenge to me...if the Bible is not true then it should be easy to discredit it. "OK, I'll bring you your proof you self-righteous SOB and you'll owe me a night out with the who*e of my choice" [I actually could have been brought up on charges for talking to him like that, but thank God he was cool].

I set out to discredit the Bible, God, Christianity. What I found over the course of researching was that it was actually less of a leap of faith to believe in God than natural selection/spontaneous generation/adaptation. The Bible had more credibility than many of the works of skeptics I had admired up to that point. I've posted many responses in other threads and you can read them for yourself. Like I said, I switched faiths. The transition was not easy. The more things I found that conflicted with my presupposition that the Bible was bogus...the more pissed off I would become. What ticked me off the most was the idea that I would be judged for what the Bible described as "sin" (acts which offended God).

Luke was the most influential book of the Bible for me, because it was written by a physician/historian, and not someone who just accepted things without investigation. Finally, I had to admit to myself that what was really making me angry is that I didn't want to believe that I would one day be accountable for my acts. It didn't matter that others were being hypocrites...I would be responsible to Jesus Christ for my actions, not someone else. I came to the realization that God did exist, I had done bad things, but that God provided a way out of that judgement through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on my behalf. I accepted that for myself personally through a prayer to Him one night at Camp Pendleton, California. (I had been transferred there by this time).

No heavenly trumpets or angelic voices, sorry! But since then I have found I have the capacity to care & help others. I never thought I had that inside me before. My old philosophy was "do unto others before they can do it to you", now it's been replaced with an attitude of service to others in order to show them how much God loves them as well.

I'll still do stupid hypocritical stuff. You'll probably witness it yourself on this site from time to time. But the difference now is that I'm not proud of it and repent (admit I'm wrong and try to change). Sorry this is so long, but thanks for taking the time to read it.

WOW. Good story. Very insightful into how your mind works, now we all understand. My story is a lot more boring, my dad was raised in a catholic school, once he got out he became an atheist and swore that his children never be forced to go through such theistic views without having the option first. So there. If God does exist, I'd thank him for that.

[luns101]

Out of curiousity luns, what made you change from atheism to Christianity?

Didn't mean to ignore your question, but Hobbes asked sort of the same thing...so you can read my story if you want.

i dont want to put words in luns mouth of course....but i think luns reached a point where he wanted his religious experience to be something other than merely an intellecutal pursuit. From their i think he began to percieve religious experience as a matter of will (which i suppose could loosely be interpreted as having a faith in something other than the merely experiential).

In some ways, I guess you're right. But it was really more of a process of discovering that my presuppositions about God/Christ were incorrect. I could argue all day long against Christians and show their flaws because it was funny, but at the end of the day when I was by myself, I had to face the fact that I'd done terrible things to other people and would eventually pay a consequence for that. Nobody (including myself) likes to hear that.

[unriggable]

That story is suspiciously similar to that of Maynard James Keenan from the band 'tool'.

[paranoid-android]

Out of curiousity luns, what made you change from atheism to Christianity?

Didn't mean to ignore your question, but Hobbes asked sort of the same thing...so you can read my story if you want.

i dont want to put words in luns mouth of course....but i think luns reached a point where he wanted his religious experience to be something other than merely an intellecutal pursuit. From their i think he began to percieve religious experience as a matter of will (which i suppose could loosely be interpreted as having a faith in something other than the merely experiential).

In some ways, I guess you're right. But it was really more of a process of discovering that my presuppositions about God/Christ were incorrect. I could argue all day long against Christians and show their flaws because it was funny, but at the end of the day when I was by myself, I had to face the fact that I'd done terrible things to other people and would eventually pay a consequence for that. Nobody (including myself) likes to hear that.

We may not like to hear it, but in all honesty, at the end of the day, I think to. I think "Sure, I may have done some terrible things, and I will have to pay the price later for those I've wronged, but I have no regrets."

I'm not one to look back on what I've done and think "Gee, that was awful." What happens, happens, and I'm just gonna go with the flow. Awful stuff happens everywhere, and I know when I've done something wrong, therefore, I make an effort to right my wrong. I consider myself a good person. I care for others, I listen, I (try hard to) hold my temper, and yet I am not a Christian. I used to be, but not anymore. While the Church instilled these values in me, they had no real purpose farther than making me a better person. I do not feel the need to place myself in a religion that I do not like, let alone do not believe.

As well, I have found that I make everything into an intellectual pursuit. I must know the why and how to everything, and Christianity did not provide me with such information. Since it wasn't enriching my mind and therefore, in my opinion, my "spirit" as it were, I needed to go elsewhere, and that elsewhere led me to the conclusion of Atheism.

Christians out there may think that I will go to Hell for being a non-believer. I say fie to their claims. They don't know what happens after death. I don't know what happens after death. We can only ever speculate. While I do believe in a "soul" that makes everyone of us, it does not necessarily mean that I need to know what happens to the "soul" when we die. All of us, atheists and Christians alike, can only speculate what may happen when we draw our final breath.

Let me just take a minute to say that this is a splendid conversation. I've never talked with so many intellectuals before, with so many people who have so many viewpoints. I just want to say thank you all, this is wonderful!

[luns101]

I'm going to "act on faith" here and assume that regardless of where we all stand on this issues, everyone here pretty much cares about helping the poor. I mentioned the micro-loan program before as a way to help the 3rd world poor.

Here's a website that will help anyone who is interested in sending $$ to individuals wishing to help climb out of poverty.

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001484.php

To my fellow Christians, remember our directive to honor the poor, which will show the world the true love of Christ:

James 2: 1 - 5
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor person in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the one wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the one who is poor, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

[paranoid-android]

I've read about that program before, it's incredible to see how such a small amount of money can go such a long way.

Seconded on the point of helping the poor, impoverished etc.